We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Thursday, November 19. 2015

Perhaps it was because we were all sure we were on the same team back in the day. Kennedy was a bit of a dolt compared to Eisenhower, but he wasn't any kind of friend to the commies. The Bay of Pigs was about as dumb an attempt at exercising American power as you could come up with, but he didn't mess it up on purpose because he was secretly hoping the other side would win. I'm not sure you can count on that brand of My mother, drunk or sober patriotism anymore.

Not too many years earlier, Eisenhower was able to go on national television and admit he was the one that sent Francis Gary Powers to spy on the Soviet Union from the edge of space. He knew that everyone on the other side of the aisle wouldn't impeach him over it. It was, after all, in the United States' best interest. Well, if it worked it was.

While terrorists are raging all over the landscape, our intelligence experts are busy in nondescript buildings in Virginia rifling through Tea Party tax returns. Anyone that understands opportunity cost knows that when some tasks get done to the last jot and tittle, others get the back burner. The Rumford Meteor japed that the massacre in Paris had an effect: France Finally Uses the List of Terrorists They’ve Been Keeping at the Bottom of a Locked Filing Cabinet Stuck in a Disused Lavatory With a Sign on the Door Saying Beware of the Leopard

If that's funny, it's because it's true. France had a list of 168 locations they had identified as possible terrorist hideouts. They used the list to conduct raids the day after the bloodbath. What exactly was a more important use of their time the day before the massacre? Putting someone in the clink for working 36 hours a week?

Even the entertainment about dealing with an implacable enemy used to be better. I'm sick of rogue CIA agents. I long for the good old days of CIA agents who were rogues. Not the same thing, is it?

“When I was five years old my mom told me ‘there’s this thing called OCW,’” says Rungta, who was homeschooled. “I just couldn’t believe how much material was available. From that moment on I spent the next few years taking OCW courses.” When most kids are entering kindergarten, Rungta was studying physics and chemistry through OpenCourseWare. For Rungta’s mother, the biggest challenge to homeschooling her son was staying ahead of him, finding courses and materials to feed his insatiable mind.

C'mon, admit it. Public School is obsolete. It serves only as an academy for depravity at this point.

Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time averaged +19.4% annually. In 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by +52.8% from 2009 and was six times greater than the total for 1989. Then by 2014, that number had ballooned to roughly $4.5 billion for the year, making this 35% of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year. According to the FBI, the total amount of goods stolen by criminals in 2014 burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses. This means that the police are now taking more assets than the criminals.

"This showed a linear association between sex and happiness up to a frequency of once a week, but at higher frequencies there is no longer an association," Amy Muise, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga who led the research, said in an email. "Therefore it is not necessary, on average, for couples to aim to engage in sex as frequently as possible."

Once a week? Maybe. I'll reserve judgment until they clarify whether that means at least two people are in the room.

Once the Food and Drug Administration approved Addyi, a failed antidepressant repackaged as a libido pill for women, drug-maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals bought the company selling Addyi for $1 billion. If they were expecting to cash in on a blockbuster drug, early sales aren’t very promising: in the first month, only 227 prescriptions for the drug have been written.

You're not allowed to drink alcohol when taking this drug. No one's getting any action under those circumstances.

In the U.S., senior care is not something many entrepreneurs are thinking creatively about. Not so in Japan: In the past year, 60 gambling-themed senior-daycare centers have opened up, giving some of the nation’s elderly not just basic shelter, but a place to spend time that’s appealing and fun.

When we first meet Catherine Earnshaw, she is a ghostly hand rapping on a window in a storm—which is to say, she is essentially the storm itself, rattling the glass panes of her former home. At every point thereafter, emotional drama and atmospheric drama are one. If Lear is minded like the weather, Catherine and Heathcliff are bodied like it—together, the most famous storm ever to strike the Yorkshire moors.

There's always plenty of weather in bodice rippers. Otherwise Fabio's pectorals wouldn't glisten with sweat as his hands slowly made their way up inside her chemise, the faint aroma of the sodden garden surrounding them like the perfume of Aphrodite, and all that sh*t.

Philadelphia police said Officer Joseph Marion, 39, was outside of a Dunkin Donuts on Wadworth Avenue on Feb. 14 when an employee lost control of a shopping cart he using was to put down salt.The cart hit Marion's vehicle, spurring Marion to get out and start attacking the employee. Marion also allegedly assaulted a woman who intervened in the initial attack.

When executives at Taco Bell found out that the Downey building that housed their first restaurant was at risk of being demolished, they ordered the store “to go.” The birthplace of the Mexican fast food chain, located on Firestone Boulevard, is up on rails and ready to roll. Founder Glen Bell built the mission style building in 1962 and on Thursday night at 10:30, store “Numero Uno” will begin the 45-mile ride to company headquarters in Irvine.

I'm fairly certain the first and only taco I ate at Taco Bell hasn't moved an inch since I swallowed it.

Rocky Ouprasith, now 23, was the man behind RockDizMusic.com and RockDizFile.com. The latter was the second-largest online file-sharing site specialising in pirated music in the United States in 2013, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Federal law enforcement shut down the sites in October 2014, and Ouprasith pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement in August. In addition to a 36-month prison term, he will also get two years of supervised release, forfeit over US$50,000 and pay nearly US$50,000 in restitution.

No one should ever go to jail for copyright infringement, which is a civil violation, or should be. Same goes for tax evasion. If you can't collect the money upfront, willingly, you're not entitled to it. Jailing people for owing money is medieval.

John le Carré, one of England’s greatest novelists, author of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and creator of the character George Smiley, was born David Cornwell in 1931 in Poole, England. He was 2 when his father—who was always either booming or busting, expanding and contracting to the rhythm of his own dodginess—got 15 months for fraud and other charges. “He could put a hand on your shoulder and the other in your pocket and both gestures would be equally sincere,” David’s brother Tony once said.

"The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" with Richard Burton and Claire Bloom is the best spy movie ever made. Discuss.

The reactions to the attacks are potentially very dangerous. We will undoubtedly have photo op show raids of foolish teenagers who got played by an informer to say the wrong thing.

'Suspected terrorists' who never met the criteria for an actual raid will be suddenly fair game under 'national emergency' rules. And you can be sure a lot of people will be swept up in that process (cattle ranchers?)

Or you could say, "A lack of planning on your part doesn't justify an emergency now to me."
These murders, while horrific, do not threaten the (their) nation. It is a shame and a scandal if their security forces had the names and locations that launched the attacks and did nothing but the law shouldn't be used as a blunt instrument (who said that?).

However, if the 'trigger point' for Muslim troubles is when the percentage of the population gets over 8%, then by closing the borders to illegals and exclusion of those who entered their country illegally with their entire families, get that magic number below 8%. That should be legal. Then let matters shake out. Pray.

It will be a lot like lancing an infection. Islam is a lot like pus. Poison within the body politic.

In the U.S. illegal aliens kill as many people every year as the 9/11 attacks did. Certainly not all of them are murders, many are simply drunk driving or a bar fight. But the people are just as dead. Who should be responsible? When a politicians or bureaucrat forgets their most important responsibility is to the citizens and begins to think their job is to benefit their party or trade favors with other power brokers they should pay a price. Maybe they should be fired/impeached, perhaps jailed or fined, some should be prosecuted and imprisoned. When a judge lets a rapist or murderer go free because a different judge in a different time declared that the 't' must be crossed before the 'i' is dotted than the felon wins the lottery and gets to go free to rape and kill again, then I think the judge should pay. When a bureaucrat tells the border patrol to stand down and not send illegal alien border crosser's back to their home then I think the bureaucrat should pay a price. Until that happens we the people are the only one's paying a price for our political and bureaucratic leadership failures. If this all gets terribly worse someday and the "legal" immigrants we are forced to accept decide to kill 100, 1000 or 10,000 of us I sincerely hope we don't just hold a candle vigil. At the least bring back the guillotine and tar and feathers.

Education is not a one-size-fits-all thing. Some children are incredibly good at learning on their own. They are enthusiastic and interested learners. Some kids are not. Some kids need structure and constant refocusing in order to learn.

I had one kid who was interested in learning with my help; one who was not. The one who was not, would have done well with the OCW programs. In fact, he taught himself division when he was in elementary school b/c he had access to a computer room where they let kids learn at their own pace. He was curious and had finished his work, so he went on to harder stuff.

I also have 2 nephews. 1 is a super-driven kid who likes to challenge himself. No one has to push him. He takes all the hard classes and is very studious in his own free time. The other nephew is smart, but normal. He doesn't have the inner fire to learn that his brother does.

Anyway, my point is, not every kid would do well in front of a computer learning on his own. Just as not every kid does well in a classroom with structure and a schedule. I say 'public school' should be geared toward learning styles. One school could be group classes, another school could be self-directed learning at your own pace. Kids/parents could decide what is best for their child, maybe though personality tests or just a questionnaire about your kid's likes and dislikes.

I just know that my kids would've HATED to be homeschooled by their mother.

After your first paragraphs, the inclusion of the le Carre link is rather ironic. The moral ambiguity of the spy world was one of his favored themes. He comes down lightly on the side that we are still, mostly, the good guys - but it could change quickly.

I seldom go to movies; le Carre's Smiley's People is the best of spy novels.

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